Saturday, December 29, 2007

I bought a few Christmas kits to do my Christmas pictures...from 2004, 2005, 2006 and now 2007. Anyway, I found three really cute kits last week. I will post them as I finish a page or two with each kit. Glenda (my mom) gives me her kits to try and some of them are easier to use than others. So, ease of use is important to me. Also, price -- I don't like to pay over $6.00 for a kit. If it falls into the "I can't live without it" category, I will go higher, but that rarely happens unless I am working on a very specific project. Then, I tell my mom that she should do a kit about whatever it is I am working on, and, voila -- free kit. She falls for it every time.

This kit is Christmas Cheer by Jennifer Maceyunas, at Digitals. As I searched "Christmas" at Digitals, this kit jumped off the screen. Great colors that seem to go with all of my pics from Christmas morning. It was very easy to put together a page using her beautiful backgrounds and really cute elements. When I purchased her kit, it was on sale for $4.88, but it is normally $6.50. This is a kit, after seeing it and using it, that I would highly recommend -- even at the full price. Click here to see Jennifer's Christmas Cheer at Digitals.

Members of Scrapville received an email to download this page kit free. Join Scrapville (go to the YahooGroups logo at the end of the blog to sign up) to get lots of freebies, coupons, but not a lot of ads!

Friday, December 28, 2007

He forgot to bring my five year-old Butterscotch Pony last year. Lindsey didn’t act as if she noticed it was missing from under the tree last Christmas, but, apparently, Lindsey has been keeping a list of her own. One with Santa’s errors in capital letters, highlighted and underlined.

Over the last year, not one word was uttered about Butterscotch Pony. Until December 15. A glum little voice said, “Good morning, Momma.” Momma said, “Good morning, Binz. What’s wrong?” Lindsey took a long, deep breath and began to tell of her year-long disappointment over not getting a $269 robot pony she would have ridden on Christmas day, and then shoved to the forbidden zone -- the toy room -- a place my girls never go because it is 1.) haunted 2.) Bigfoot lives there 3.) there is no momma or daddy in that room -- they are all the way downstairs and 4.) it is too messy. Momma said to Lindsey, “You haven’t even mentioned Butterscotch since last Christmas.” Lindsey said, “I forgot I was disappointed by Santa Claus.” She is good. Very good.

Life went on for about eight hours -- until Daddy got home from work, and Momma told him all about Binzer’s Big Christmas Disappointment of 2006. Santa Claus had to be made aware of his oversight, and, with the Christmas delivery cut-off date fast approaching, we had to get our message to him quickly. We jumped in our mini-van, and, with not a moment to spare, headed to the mall to get a meeting with Santa.

Lindsey waited patiently, and, then, as she and her sister approached the bearded one, she turned with a sly look and gave me a nod. The look was a bit “mafia-ish” so I was concerned she might punch him or give him some concrete boots for his “indiscretion,” but, in all of her curly-headedness, she jumped up on his lap and told him what she wanted for Christmas with only a gentle reminder that this was the second time she has asked for Butterscotch Pony and that they “may quit making them.” She left Santa's lap feeling assured that she would get her pony this year.

I told Lindsey that Butterscotch was very expensive and to not get her hopes up. “Santa doesn’t need money, he just makes it,” she said. Good point.

Customer relations seems to be Santa’s strong point, because on Christmas morning, he corrected his error from the year before. There were no forms to fill out, no waiting on hold to talk to the elf in charge of robot ponies. He just brought it. No questions asked.

“Look, Momma, Butterscotch. See Momma. I told you he would bring it. And you didn’t have to spend one cent,” Lindsey pointed out.

I was a little disappointed Lindsey didn’t seem more excited. But, then I realized she was just confident. When she walked into the room, she knew Butterscotch would be there. Santa really is a great guy.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Since I began scrapbooking, I have used Creative Memories albums. I like all the CM stuff, but I am not obsessive about everything being CM. As I have shifted away from paper scrapping to digital, I still use CM albums, because, in my opinion, they are the best (and if they are faulty, they replace them). I had a CM party during the summer and loved the new products. CM has branched out to custom framing (my photographs I sent off look great) and digital Storybooks.Okay, I am ridiculously "OCD" about my scrapbook pages -- paper and digital. When I was paper scrapping, it was not uncommon for me to work on a page eight, nine hours. I am not much faster doing digital pages. So, when my consultant told me about the digital Storybooks, I thought there is no way, I, the self-proclaimed Queen of overly-detailed-scrapbook-page, the Duchess of I-would-rather-be-5-years-behind-then-do-a-simple-page, could do the Storybook. But, I thought, what the heck. Let's try it. I downloaded the free software and started working at 10:30 p.m. I was finished by 12:30 a.m. I uploaded my finished book to CM's website and received my book in a week. I had completed an entire summer in two and a half hours. I had chosen simple black pages, while accenting with only colored text and heads. My bright summer pictures popped off the black pages. Very simple, very clean, very done. I was impressed with the amount of space allowed for text. Only once did I run out of space.

I tell you all that to tell you this...At the time, I wished I could print out my digital pages I have done in the CM Storybook format, but they only offer templates with limited themes. Then, I woke up at 2 a.m. one morning with a brilliant idea. I could create my ridiculously detailed digital pages (just use the Storybook specs when creating the doc) and choose the full page picture template. I could upload my ridiculously detailed digital pages and have a Storybook with my own pages.

I have seen and been told that other companies have similar products to the CM Storybook, but I can only vouch for the CM Storybook. The paper quality, print quality, etc. is exceptional. I am very picky about the color of my pics, but CM printed my book perfectly.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Sherrypoptart was the winner of the book giveaway. Picture Yourself Creating Scrapbooks will be sent out to Sherry ASAP when we receive our copies.

Thanks to all Scrapvillians who attended the chat at Digitals featuring Glenda and author Sally Beachem. Those who attended got a really cute mini kit, and two earned 50% off coupons by using our "Chat Words." By innocently typing "cool" (chosen by my eight year-old)and "Photoshop", three chatters got their coupons!

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Sharon "Digi" is the winer of a 75% off coupon for one of Glenda's kits at Digitals for her comment in our Comments Challenge. Keep those comments coming.

Within the next week or two, we will give another prize in our Comments Challenge. You could win a percentage off coupon, a free kit, or Glenda might, possibly, come to your house and vacuum for you. Probably a coupon or kit though. Just leave a great comment on the blog. Easy.

Also, in the next couple of weeks, we will be telling you how you can have a chance to receive a $30 gift certificate to Digitals for Glenda's stuff. Stay tuned.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Here is a background and tag from Glenda Ketcham's Mouse Scraps ($5.50) and Mouse Scraps Add-on ($3.50). Lost of backgrounds and elements. Useful for more than just vacation pics -- elementary school activities, parties, etc.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

I have been noticing that a lot of designers aren't designing kits, so much as one or two elements packaged together that can be recolored. You can get a multi piece kit with backgrounds for $5 or get a set of bows or a bow that can be recolored for $5. What do you think? Which is the better way to go when purchasing digital scrapping supplies? How much is too much to pay for a personal use kit or element? Let me hear from you.

Monday, November 26, 2007

The two kits shown in the graphic below were especially created for the new “Picture Yourself Creating Digital Scrapbooks” book, now available for pre-order from Amazon - just click here to get it now. These kits are provided as part of the book in the accompanying DVD.

This book is written for the novice digital scrapbooker and the experienced paper scrapbooker who wants to dive into digital. It’s also designed to be inspiration for the intermediate or experienced digital scrapbooker, who can peruse the layouts by our featured designers and their creative teams, and use the book’s resource DVD contents in their own unique way.

Written in an easy-to-follow and highly visual format, the book teaches the reader step-by-step how to create beautiful scrapbooks using their digital camera, computer, and basic graphics software.

The accompanying DVD includes sample layouts, page kits, brushes, fonts, and application-specific tutorials to help the reader create professional-quality printable and digital scrapbooks at home.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

My eight year-old has been interested in photography since she was three. She has always loved having her picture taken but getting to take pictures is even more exciting . I wasn’t always comfortable handing over my Canon 20D to a five or six year-old, so I would buy her disposable cameras. We never seemed to get the pics printed, or we would lose the camera in the deep dark hole that is the toy room.

When she was in second grade, she asked for a real digital camera for Christmas. I got her a $10 digital camera -- a 1 mega pixel. Sydney took a few pics -- four pics, which was all the camera could hold. We downloaded and opened the file and…my six year-old said that “is a really poor quality image.”

For her birthday, we broke down and got her a Fuji Film FinePix 6.3 mega pixels. I went through the rules of owning a camera -- also close the lens cover, put it back in the case when not using it, keeping an extra set of batteries charged, and keep attached to your arm while using and carrying it. Sydney has done a great job taking care of her camera, and an even greater job taking pictures. She knows how to download her files -- I help choose the destination file. In addition to being a great camera for Sydney -- durable, easy to handle -- it is handy to have around for the quickie pictures I wouldn’t have bothered to get my 20D out for.

I am most proud that she is already scrapping her pics. Every few months, we go through her picture file on our computer, and she pics out photos to print. She has the ability to choose the picture that tell the story of each event.

After printing the pictures, Sydney organizes them into her Creative Memories Pic Folio Album she got as a present. I love this album. At 11x14, it has ten opening in each spread for pictures or journaling boxes. Syd just slides her pictures in, then, uses a pre-cut set of title bars, and journaling boxes (different patterns on the front and back) to finish her spread. The journaling boxes have just enough space to tell a brief story about each page. Lines help Sydney keep her developing handwriting straight.

Approximately $120 for the camera$44 for the Creative Memories PicFolio album$12 for the pre-cut journaling setHaving an eight year-old who scraps and journals priceless.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Welcome to Glenda’s hometown, Harrodsburg – A pleasant little place of clever people and live businessmen. We Harrodsburgians have always assumed the founders of Harrodsburg meant lively businessmen when creating the town slogan in 1883, but, as the lifespan of the adult male was not what it is today, they may have only been stating what would not be obvious.

Harrodsburg became a bustling village when the railroad came through in the 1830s. With the railroad came more prosperity for the little village in the middle of farm country. The nearest big city was 12 miles away. In the 1880s, Harrodsburg boasted several churches, post office, general store, grist mill. We don’t like to talk of such things, but there was also a distillery. There was a good market for grain but the good citizens of the 'Burg prefer to have the grain marketed elsewhere, rather than the results that flow from "the poisonous still."

Let’s skip forward several decades to the 1940s. There were new faces in town, as well as familiar faces that had just grown older. Babies had been born – delivered by Dr. Mitchell. The old people died and were buried at Clover Hill. Women baked pies and hung the laundry on line. Men worked in the fields, tended the animals, oversaw their little businesses and came home every night to a homemade dinner at half past five…or did they?

Every quaint little burg has it colorful characters. For all of its “quaintness,” Harrodsburg had it fair share of citizens who have left us with much fodder for….digital scrapbooking kits. What did you think I was going to say?

The digital kits in this series -- Welcome to Glenda's Hometown will chronicle life in a small farm community during Glenda's formative years and any other year she decides to make up. Most of the stories are based in fact, but the names have changed because the subject of a particular kit may not like how they have been portrayed and egg our barn or tip our cow. The stories that Glenda knows first hand are guaranteed to be 97 percent true, all other are other as true as the person who told the story chooses to make it. You are buying high quality digital elements, but everything else you choose to buy from these stories may only be low quality -- well you know what.

Etta McKnight, Glenda’s mother, lived on Popcorn Road for over fifty years. She wasn’t the richest. She wasn’t the poorest. She didn’t have the fanciest dresses – all homemade, but she did have the prettiest flowers. During the spring, summer and part of fall, any vistor would walk away with a beautiful bouquet of Etta’s flowers –baby’s breath and fern fronds filling out the bundle of lilies (Stargazers were her favorite), daisies, asters, bee balm, lilies, poppies, lilies and more lilies. Once the flowers were cut, Etta would arrange the flowers and place them in a mayonnaise jar, filled precisely to half with water (so it wouldn’t spill on the way home). As her visitors pulled out onto the road, they always looked up into her kitchen window where she would be waving good bye.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

My friend gave me this picture from the summer of my youngest daughter Lindsey (left) and her daughter Riley. They were having a sleepover -- Lindsey's first that wasn't at Yay-Yay and Papaw's house. She told me they got a little dirty so they could have a bath in the bubbles. I love this picture because their little faces just pop off the page -- the whole picture is beige and white -- except for their pink cheeks! The kit includes pinks, blues and greens, but I loved staying with the beige and white theme.

If you would like to download the towel frame-tag-bow freebie pictured above, click here to find the URL. Note: To access Glenda's personal FTP area, located at Digitals, the previous link will take you to the Digitals gallery, and then you can access the FTP from there (look for the link in the description).

Glenda would like to thank Bannerwoman for her commercial-use bow used in this kit.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Digitals is celebrating three years of digital scrapping. The first week of October is always a big celebration at Digitals -- freebies, freebies and more freebies. When Owners Stacy & Rick and those designers get a sugar high from all that cake, they start handing out all kinds of goodiesCheck out the Daily Download section of their website to see this week's goodies. Also, pop over to the store -- HUGE SALES. I would even check the gallery because those tricky designers sometimes like to hide links to great stuff or advertise even better sale items.As your "party favor" for attending the birthday party this week, Glenda Ketcham's party favors for the birthday event are seven all-occasion cards -- a download a day. Go here each day this week to get your card.Click here for more information on the Birthday Bash.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

I had been telling my mom, Glenda, to do a sidewalk chalk kit since April. She went right out and bought a bucket of sidewalk chalk, but never got around to doing the kit. Every time my girls went over to Yay-Yay's house, Lindsey would go into the workroom, look at the sidewalk chalk and ask, "Yay-Yay, can I play with that chalk?" Yay-Yay would answer, "No. Not yet. I need to work on my kit first."In August, Yay-Yay came to visit with ulterior motives. She had finished the sidewalk chalk kit and wanted to get pics of the girls being a "Driveway Degas" and "Parking Lot Picasso." Lindsey knew what she was up to and wasn't having any of it. She refused to use the chalk, no matter how nicely Yay-Yay asked. Sydney politely declined. When it is 95 degrees and someone ask you to sit on the blacktop and draw, the only thing a little girl can say is "no, thank you. Maybe when the sun goes down." After the fun of being passive aggressive ran out, Lindsey decided she would succumb to Yay-Yay's will and draw. Sydney quickly followed. I snapped a few pics, had a good story to tell, and put together a scrapbook page in about 15 minutes using Glenda's Parking Lot Picasso. Easy to use. If you don't have any sidewalk chalk pics, chalk is cheap. Grab a bucket of it and show your kids your non-computer artistic abilities. Snap a few pics, and down load Parking Lot Picasso at Digitals.

My eight year-old has been interested in photography since she was three. She has always loved having her picture taken but getting to take pictures is even more exciting . I wasn’t always comfortable handing over my Canon 20D to a five or six year-old, so I would buy her disposable cameras. We never seemed to get the pics printed, or we would lose the camera in the deep dark hole that is the toy room.

When she was in second grade, she asked for a real digital camera for Christmas. I got her a $10 digital camera -- a 1 mega pixel. Sydney took a few pics -- four pics, which was all the camera could hold. We downloaded and opened the file and…my six year-old said that “is a really poor quality image.”

For her birthday, we broke down and got her a Fuji Film FinePix 6.3 mega pixels. I went through the rules of owning a camera -- also close the lens cover, put it back in the case when not using it, keeping an extra set of batteries charged, and keep attached to your arm while using and carrying it. Sydney has done a great job taking care of her camera, and an even greater job taking pictures. She knows how to download her files -- I help choose the destination file. In addition to being a great camera for Sydney -- durable, easy to handle -- it is handy to have around for the quickie pictures I wouldn’t have bothered to get my 20D out for.

I am most proud that she is already scrapping her pics. Every few months, we go through her picture file on our computer, and she pics out photos to print. She has the ability to choose the picture that tell the story of each event.

After printing the pictures, Sydney organizes them into her Creative Memories Pic Folio Album she got as a present. I love this album. At 11x14, it has ten opening in each spread for pictures or journaling boxes. Syd just slides her pictures in, then, uses a pre-cut set of title bars, and journaling boxes (different patterns on the front and back) to finish her spread. The journaling boxes have just enough space to tell a brief story about each page. Lines help Sydney keep her developing handwriting straight.

Approximately $120 for the camera$44 for the Creative Memories PicFolio album$12 for the pre-cut journaling setHaving an eight year-old who scraps and journals priceless.

When I was working on this blog's header, I envisioned it having a postmark that I could change seasonally or monthly, depending on how much vacuuming or laundry needed to be done at the time. I had a font I knew would work -- 1942. {Sidebar: Check out the font on the blog header, looks like an old Underwood-style typewriter, I have used it numerous times since downloading here free.} I was going to make my mom come up with a post mark using that font, but she just searched postmark at several sites and found a great one. Exclusive Digitals Designer Christine Beasley's (Seebee) had one on sale at Digital. Easy to use. Good for postmarking things for a hundred years I think. Check it out here. Christine is not my mother, aunt, cousin or sister. I just liked her postmark.

Friday, September 28, 2007

My girls don't play with toys. They play dress up and make-believe. One of their favorite games to play is "fairies." They go on fairy searches, they put out food for fairies, and they even have opinions on what type of flowers to plant to attract fairies. They dress up like fairies and prance through the yard several times a week. I don't think the people driving by even notice the herd of fairies flying, leaping and spinning around my yard anymore.At my house, we are especially fond of the Tooth Fairy. My eight year-old, Sydney, lost a tooth in kindergarten. After placing it under her pillow the night before, she excitedly reached under said pillow -- now covered in a thin layer of fairy dust -- to find four quarters. Literally, not knowing the value of a dollar, she was disappointed. I refrained from launching into the "when I was a little girl, I would have loved to have gotten..."When it came time for the next tooth to go under the pillow, Sydney said, "I think I will wait until I have some more teeth for the Tooth Fairy. She might pay more for a set." Syd lost seven more teeth and was ready for the payout.Because she showed so much restraint and saved her teeth, my husband and I discussed the amount "a set of teeth" might be worth on the open market. We came up with $20. She woke the next morning and was thrilled with her windfall.So, I tell you all that to tell you this...I assumed that she would be saving her tooth that fell out a couple of days ago until she "had a set." I was wrong. She came to me at 9:30 p.m. and said, "I forgot to put my tooth under my pillow." I was panicked. I was out of fairy dust. I tried talking her into waiting, but no. She wanted to set a trap for the Tooth Fairy. At 9:30 at night, Sydney wants to set a trap for the Tooth Fairy. Now, in a regular home, that might seem...a parental hardship, a major difficulty. Not at our house. We, two years ago, set a Santa Trap. We didn't want to hurt him. Or stop him from his deliveries. We just wanted photographic evidence that he existed -- there were some big kids at school who had the audacity to question the validity of St. Nick. I don't know about your camera, but my camera has a special setting -- motion detector. If you set your camera on motion detector and hide it, you can set a "magical creature trap." And we did. And we got our photographic evidence of Santa. Sydney and Lindsey wanted a picture of the Tooth Fairy. And, as their mother, I was going to get them that evidence.The next morning Sydney jumped out of bed and grabbed the camera. "Show me, show me," She yelled. "Did we get anything?" I put the flashcard in the computer and the image that appeared brought a gasp from Sydney and a whispered "I knew it. There really is a Tooth Fairy, Momma," from my five year-old. In front of us was an image of my little girls sleeping with a glowing, sparkly orb floating above their heads. I just love that motion detector setting on my camera.

Create-a-fairy...I photographed up close a stain-glass lampshade. Cut out a section of the shade using the oval tool, feathered 80. I used the fairy dust in Glenda's Twinkle Belle kit to create the fairy dust trail.

Scrapville is a blog about scrapbooking, photography and the lack of clean clothes and parental supervision given by those who practice these hobbies. I have always been a photographer -- landscapes prior to children. Portraits after. I began scrapbooking in 1999 while pregnant with my first daughter. As I began doing more portraits of my children, friends asked to me to photograph their children. After word of mouth by my mouthy friends, I was operating a small portrait studio whether I liked it or not.I am extremely critical and picky about the color and lighting of my photographs and am over-the-top detailed, everything-has-to-be-perfect when it comes to my scrapbook pages. Therefore, I am five years behind in scrapping. My mother, Glenda Ketcham, discovered digital scrapbooking several years ago which has helped pick up the pace of my scrapbooking. After digital scrapping for eight months or so, she started learning to create digital elements. I let her get ahead of me on the curve of learning the finer points of PhotoShop and Illustrator. Then, I stepped in to do what I do best...come up with ideas and criticize -- I mean critique her work. So my goal here is to 1.) learn to blog and teach myself basic html 2.) use my writing and research skills I acquired as journalist b.c. (before children) 3.) teach others to improve their photography 4.) share tips/info about cool sites, albums, and gadgets and 5.) promote my mom's work (and other quality designer I have found in the digiscrapping world) because I like it, not because I have to.

Kellan's Layouts

Glenda's Kits Exclusively at Digitals

Contact Kellan at

kellanway@yahoo.com
This is the blog of Kellan Way, this is technically not Glenda's blog (I am linked as Glenda's blog at Digitals). In addition to articles, photography tips, etc., I will be highlighting her work as a designer. I can get the inside scoop on new stuff because she is my daughter's mother's mother.

Contact Glenda Ketcham

glendaketcham@yahoo.com

Scrapville is...

... a blog about scrapbooking, photography and the lack of parental supervision given by those who practice these hobbies. My goal here is to 1.) learn to blog and teach myself basic html 2.) use my writing and research skills I acquired as journalist b.c. (before children) 3.) teach others to improve their photography 4.) share tips/info about cool sites, albums, and gadgets and 5.) promote my mom's work (and other quality designers I have found in the digiscrapping world) because I like it, not because I have to. If you like Glenda's work, then visit me often -- I have an inside track to what she is working on and can tell you the backstory on her kits, which may make it just a little bit more fun when opening up one of Glenda's files. I also can be persuasive when telling her to give away freebies. Don't forget to look for hidden links to great stuff periodically as you read through the entries.

To read the whole "Scrapville is..." entry, go to the very first entry in this blog ---September 2007.